After Years Crouching, Arts Ed Raising Its Hand Again

Savoy Elementary is one of eight in the country earmarked by the President’s Committee on the Arts and the Humanities as a “turnaround” school — one in dire need of help. For three years, each of the eight is “adopted” by a well-known artist (in Savoy’s case, the actress Kerry Washington) and receives a tremendous funding boost to institute arts programs ($14.7 million for the eight). This is based on a new belief — after years of emphasis on standardized testing — in the power of the arts.

Today, more and more policymakers think it is the arts, after all, that can motivate kids, engage them and help them develop 21st-century skills such as teamwork and innovative thinking — in sum, be the key to their salvation.

The children at Savoy, accordingly, are being bombarded with arts. Every kid in the third, fourth and fifth grades gets 45 minutes a day of music and movement training in addition to regular arts classes. The school is phasing in the Suzuki method, an early-childhood music teaching program, next year. Washington takes a lively interest in “her” school, holding Skype chats. Then there are special visitors, such as Ma — who finally makes his entrance and is promptly enveloped in handshaking and introductions to the adults while the cameras click. The kids are still waiting.

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